Friday morning didn't come soon enough. Not that I was looking forward to seeing the traffic girl again, but because after a week of chasing dead leads on the home invasions, I needed a break—and a beer. I also really needed my freaking watch back. I was late for everything all week, including dinner with Shannon Green at the Bull City Grill.

I stopped at the hostess station on my way in.

"How many, sir?" the tiny, not-yet-legal brunette behind the podium asked.

"I'm looking for someone. Blonde." I wanted to add 'pretentious and likely overdressed', but I didn't.

The girl nodded. "I think she's at the bar."

I winked my thanks and crossed the room, weaving my way through the tables toward the bar. I didn't see pretension anywhere. The bartender—forties, fat, caucasian, and balding—leaned his elbows on the bar top. "You look lost."

Shaking my head, I did another scan of the room. "Looking for a girl."

He let out a long, slow whistle, his eyes wide.

I laughed and nodded my head. "Yep, I'm looking for her."

He pointed toward a hallway to his right. "Ladies room, I think."

I angled onto a barstool. "Cool. Can I get a beer while I wait?"

"Of course. What'll it be?"

I studied the taps. "Let me try that Goose Island IPA."

"Good choice," he said, retrieving a frosty mug from the freezer.

As he reached to place my beer in front of me, his eyes darted to a flash of red in my peripheral. When I turned my head and saw Shannon Green in a fitted red dress coming in my direction, the world seemed to stop spinning. Everything was in slow motion. Her hair was blown back by an imaginary breeze. The heavens opened up. Angels sang.

The bartender overshot my cardboard coaster, catching just the edge of the mug, and sent it toppling forward on the bar. Swearing as my crotch was doused in frozen IPA, I leapt off my bar stool only to plant my feet in the center of the puddle forming on the floor. My right foot slipped, and I crash-landed in a heap by the bar.

Half the restaurant gasped; the other half applauded and laughed. Including my date.

Standing over me, with her hands clamped over her mouth, Shannon's eyes were dancing with amusement. As I hoisted myself up, using the bar stool as leverage, she giggled. "I'm sorry. Are you OK?"

I was dripping.

The bartender's mouth was gaping with horror as he thrust a white bar towel in my direction. "Man, I'm so sorry. That was a complete accident."

I nodded and wrung beer out of the front of my fleece pullover. I took the towel and dried my hands. "It's OK."

Shannon offered her hands toward me. "What can I do?"

I jerked my thumb toward the door. "I live about five minutes from here. I'm going to run home and change."

She reached for her black purse that was draped over her shoulder. "I'll come with you."

I opened my mouth to speak, but I closed it and nodded instead. Truthfully, I didn't want to leave her at the bar alone with the reaction she was getting out of every man in the room. Not that I was feeling territorial or anything. I pulled my keys out of my pocket. "You can ride with me."

"OK. Let me settle my tab," she said, turning back toward the bar.

The bartender held up his hand, shaking his head. "It's on me. It's the least I can do for all the trouble I caused."

I wasn't sure how paying for her drinks settled the score between us men, but I nodded my appreciation for the gesture none the less. I looked at Shannon. "Shall we?"

A smile crept across her face, and she looped her arm through mine. Had I not been soaked in booze, my chest would have puffed out with pride as every eye in the room watched us leave.

It was a short drive in a drizzling rain to my apartment, and Shannon's perfume in the close proximity of my truck was making me a little dizzy. "Are you having a good trip?" I asked in an attempt to distract my wandering mind from the way her skirt was scrunched up under her thigh, showing a little more of her leg than she probably intended.

She brushed her hair back off her shoulder. "Yeah. I think my interview went pretty well this morning."

"Oh, yeah. Who was it with?" I asked.

"Wake Up Wake County," she answered.

I nodded. "Good luck with that."

She smiled over at me, and I nearly drove into oncoming traffic.

We reached my apartment somehow in one piece, and she followed me up to the second floor. Once inside, I stripped off my pullover and walked toward the washer and dryer in the hallway. "Make yourself at home. I'll be just a sec."

She looked around my bare apartment. "Uh, OK."

I had a recliner and an entertainment center that took up the whole wall. "I know it isn't much."

"No, it's great," she lied.

I chuckled and started the washer. I dropped the fleece into the machine and stripped off my t-shirt.

"Hey, is that a Glock 38?" she asked.

My mouth fell open as I turned toward her. She was walking over with her eyes on my sidearm. "Yeah. How did you know that?"

She opened her purse and produced a compact 9mm. "I carry the G43."

My heart skipped a beat. "You carry?"

She nodded. "My daddy raised me to not leave home without it."

"Let me see that thing."

Like a pro, she dropped the magazine and cleared the chamber before handing it to me. I might have fallen in love with her right then. "Don't worry, I have a permit," she added quickly.

I chuckled as I handed the gun back to her. "I'm impressed."

She smiled as she reloaded it and tucked it back into her purse. She looked back up at me, and I realized I was staring. "Are you going to get dressed?" she asked.

I considered the question for a moment too long, and she pointed down the hallway. "Clothes. Now." She laughed and turned on her heel. "I'm hungry."

I watched her walk to the recliner and sit down, crossing one long leg over the other. Get a grip, Nate. "Give me two minutes," I said and walked down the hall.

After changing into a pair of jeans and a black shirt with an army green jacket, I came back to the living room to find that Shannon was gone. "Shannon?"

"In here," she called from the spare room behind me.

I walked back to the second bedroom, which I had converted to a home office, and found her staring at my wall cork board that was plastered with photos of missing women and suspects. I wasn't sure how I felt about her blatant snooping around my house.

As if reading my mind, she said, "I was looking for the bathroom. What is all this?"

I leaned against the door frame. "It's a case I've been working on for a very long time."

She tapped a photo in the center of the board. "I knew Leslie Bryson."

My ears perked up. "What?"

She nodded. "Yeah. We grew up together. Our dads still play golf sometimes. It's a shame they never found out what happened to her."

I blinked. "Seriously?"

She laughed. "Asheville isn't Mayberry, but it certainly isn't a metropolis either." She pointed to all the different photos. "What does she have to do with all these other people? Are they missing too?"

I walked over behind her. "I'm pretty sure that all of these women were abducted and/or killed by the same person. I'm just having a hard time proving it."

She turned to look at me with raised eyebrows. "You think it might be a serial killer?"

"Could be," I answered.

"Yikes," she said. "I remember when Leslie disappeared like it was yesterday. It was so frightening. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in Asheville, ya know?"

"So, you know her family?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. I've known them almost my whole life."

"That's why I was in Asheville, Shannon. I wanted to talk to the family, but they wouldn't see me." I took a step toward her, an interrogation technique to induce stress. "Can you talk to them? Get them to meet with me?"

She sucked in a sharp breath and nodded slightly. "Yeah, I guess so." She reached up and fingered the flap over my jacket pocket. Then she leaned in and cut her sultry eyes up at me. "Does that mean you'll come back to Asheville?"

I gulped. God, this woman is good. I took a step back. "Yeah, absolutely."

She giggled. "I'll go see them when I get home tomorrow." She nodded toward the door behind me. "Let's go eat."

We definitely needed to get out of my apartment before I, once again, disproved myself as a gentleman. "Yeah. Let's do that."

"You wanna go back to that bar? Their food looked good," she said as I followed her swaying hips down the hallway.

When we got to my front door, I held it open for her. "No. I wanna take you somewhere nice."

And I did.

*************

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